What is a culture of Peace?
July 16th, 2008
I read an excellent article today in PeaceSigns (http://peace.mennolink.org/cgi-bin/m.pl?a=505) by Susan Mark Landis, called Word Matters. She writes that if we ask children to draw a picture of war, they can do so in detail and even with sound effects! But, if we ask them to draw peace, that they might draw “a rainbow and a few animals at a stream…They can’t imagine what peace looks like–they haven’t been taught.”
Do we know what a culture of Peace would be? Could we draw a meaningful picture?
Here’s an attempt: old fashioned farms, gardens, clean streams of water…having enough time to walk to where I need to go and safe and beautiful pathways to get there…encouraging children (and maybe even adults) in pursuing art: painting, sculpture, dance, music.
That’s not nearly enough. There is more to it. What part of the picture can you imagine?
Peace,
Lynn
But, it’s more than that, isn’t it?
Surely some people deserve the death penalty
June 25th, 2008There was yet another senseless, violent murder in Dallas last week. Two young men who ran a Christian music recording studio were killed and robbed as they left the studio after a late night of work.
The young men who were later arrested for their murders had other outstanding warrants. This week, they gave interviews to the media about the murders. Both were upset they only got $2 in the robbery, they blamed the victims for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the one who admitted to killing them, when asked whether he was sorry, responded: “Do it look like I got remorse?” he said.
I admit that my first thought was that he deserves the death penalty. I could find so many ways to justify it: they had outstanding warrants, killed two people who likely would have given them any cash they had and probably the car too, and who demonstrated no remorse for taking two lives.
But in the last few years I’ve come to oppose the death penalty, those things are common to most capital crimes. Killing two more young men is not going to resolve the problems that lead to these senseless murders, it will not stop future murders, nor will it bring back the two who were killed.
However, life in prison seems an appropriate minimum punishment. It is also one which allows for the possibility of repentance and redemption, though that seems a very far off possibility right now.
I admit this isn’t easy. There is a part of me that thinks we should wash our hands of these two criminals…but the part of me who is open to the teachings of Jesus believes in miraculous possibilities and is humble enough to know that I am not the final arbiter of justice or life.
Peace,
Lynn
Advice for Activists
June 16th, 2008In the movie Camden 28, one of the activists told of some advice given to them by Fr. Philip Berrigan. Berrigan said that an activist had to “remove coats of fear” first: The fear of losing your job, the fear of having people know that you are anti-war, the fear of rejection by friends and family, the fear of prison.
Berrigan had faced all of those fears. He and his brother, Daniel, were two of the first priests to publically oppose the war in Vietnam. They spent time in prison for their protests, including one in which they took files from a draft board office and burned them with homemade napalm in the parking lot. They inspired an generation to live their faith, to stand for justice and perhaps, most importantly, to rediscover the radical Jesus.
What are your fears of becoming an activist? How could H4PJ help you to overcome those fears?
Peace,
Lynn
What Is A Young Gay Man’s Life Worth?
Jim Burroway
June 11th, 2008
About a year and a half, with parole.
That’s the sentence that Stephen Moller received today for the death of Sean Kennedy. Sean, 20, was attacked outside a Greenville County, S.C. bar on May 16, 2007. Witnesses said that Moller shouted anti-gay epithets at Kennedy before attacking him. Sean died of his injuries.
Moller was originally charged with murder, but the grand jury reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter. Moller pleaded guilty to those reduced charges and was sentenced to five years, reduced to three, minus seven months for time served. Moller’s attorney said that when all is said and done, Moller will probably serve about a year and a half.
In a statement in court today, Moller shirked responsibility for his crime, saying:
“I wish that young people weren’t allowed to be out late at night and the bars were not allowed to serve them alcohol. I think if that hadn’t taken place, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here today.”
But contrast Moller’s statement to the court with his taunting phone call to a friend of Sean’s fifteen minutes after the assault:
Hey. (laughter) Whoa stop. (laughter) Hey, I was just wondering how your boyfriend’s feeling right about now. (laughter) (??) knocked the f— out. (laughter). The f—— faggot. He ought to never stick his mother-f—— nose (??) Where are you going? Just a minute. (laughter). Yea boy, your boy is knocked out, man. The mother——-. Tell him he owes me $500.00 for breaking my god—- hand on his teeth that f—— bitch”
Involuntary manslaughter. A year and a half.
Elke Kennedy, Sean’s mother, reacted this way:
“There was no justice today for Sean. The sentence that Stephen Moller received, in my opinion, is a joke and a slap on the wrist. Once again, it proves that in South Carolina there is no justice.”
South Carolina has no hate crime law covering sexual orientation. But hey, South Carolina Equality points out that torturing animals can get you five years in prison.
Killing a gay man? Half that.
Ms. Kennedy is right. There is no justice today.
Finally, the Bush administration system of injustice is starting to fall apart.
In a stunning blow to the administration’s failed detention policies, the Supreme Court ruled today in Boumediene v. Bush that the U.S. Constitution applies to the government’s detention policies at Guantánamo Bay. The Court made clear that detainees held at Guantánamo have a right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus.
Habeas corpus is the freedom from being thrown in prison illegally, with no help, no end in sight and no due process. As the ACLU has said all along, no president should ever be given the sole power to call someone an enemy, wave his or her hand, and lock that person away indefinitely.
Now, take heart in these words from today’s remarkable Supreme Court decision, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy:
“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.”
The ACLU stands ready to stop any effort by the Bush administration to get around this decision. It is important that we support the ACLU to make sure this decision marks the beginning of the end of the reprehensible practices that have been carried out in the name of the American people at Guantánamo Bay, including the failed Military Commissions system
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